It may be a first: President Obama and Texas’ two Republican senators agree on something related to health care reform. This part won’t surprise you: What they agree on is a bipartisan proposal to repeal a provision in the 2010 health care law known as “the 1099 tax reporting requirement.” Businesses had complained that the provision was burdensome and costly.
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Crumbling U.S. ports of entry along the Southwest border and inadequate staffing are leading to success for smugglers using major crossings instead of desolate deserts to move contraband, a South Texas mayor told House panel on Tuesday. “The criminal cartels are exploiting our weaknesses,” McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez said in testimony before the House Homeland […]
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Redistricting is the rawest exercise of political power there is, and Republicans, who completely control the process in the Texas legislature, are divided in a politically risky way. Because of GOP hegemony in Austin, the bomb-throwers want to go for broke (like Democrats did in the olden days), trying to draw bizarre-shaped districts that could give Republicans three or even four of the state’s four new congressional seats. The pragmatists want to reach out and share the political bounty with the state’s burgeoning Latino population, whose growth accounts for more than two-thirds of Texas’ gains this past decade.
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You’ve heard all the Republican rhetoric and heat on talk radio about President Obama raising your taxes since he took office. Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, for example, said the proposed White House budget would add “$1.6 trillion in new taxes on professionals and small businesses — plus $87.8 billion in higher taxes on America’s energy companies.” Well, the Obama administration wants to tell the other side of the story. With that April tax deadline approaching, the White House is about to roll out an interactive way to see how much your tax burden will . . . go down . . . this year because of the payroll tax cut contained in the bipartisan tax deal reached in December.
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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been lashing out at border critics recently, flatly denying claims that problems along the Southwestern border are “out of control.” “The border is simply not the same as it was two years ago,” Napolitano said in a speech Friday at the Newseum in Washington.
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The House and Senate could vote this week on proposals to strip greenhouse gas regulating power from the Environmental Protection Agency. The House may consider a stand-alone bill sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Senate votes could come in the context of at least three separate plans to restrict what the EPA can do to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
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Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, is part of a bipartisan coalition pushing a measure that would provide the Secretary of Homeland Security with authority to build up to 350 miles of additional infrastructure on the Southwest border and punish cities and states that provided sanctuary to illegal immigrants. The plan also would require the Homeland Security chief to report to Congress once a sector of the Southwest border experiences a 40 percent increase in apprehensions from the previous fiscal year, including a plan to gain operational control of that particular sector.
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